Quality Delivery of Evidence-Based Programs for National Guard and Reserve Families: Applying the Proven Prosper Model

National Guard and Reserve (NGR) families face many unique challenges in meeting the combined demands from their civilian and military contexts.  These demands place them at risk for substance misuse and other behavior problems. This presentation will describe a new NIH/NIDA-funded project designed to test an evidence-based delivery system that addresses these challenges, called the PROSPER Partnership Model.

The PROSPER Partnership Model is a system designed to support community-university partnership implementation of evidence-based interventions. Through PROSPER, community teams collaborate closely with scientists and prevention coordinators, who provide continuous, proactive technical assistance.  Our study will apply the PROSPER delivery system for family-focused interventions to achieve the goal of strengthening NGR families–reducing youth problem behaviors, substance misuse, and decreasing family dysfunction–by integrating and synergizing civilian and military support infrastructures for military families.

 The presentation will begin with a summary of the PROSPER Partnership Model, its theoretical underpinnings, organizational structure, and its linkages to existing program delivery infrastructures.  Key long-term RCT outcomes from other PROSPER evaluation studies will be noted. Next, the presentation will summarize the three project aims and related, illustrative research activities planned for the current study. The first aim is to adapt modifiable implementation procedures of the PROSPER delivery system for NGR families to address unique challenges and specific features of their lives and culture. This aim will be accomplished through focus groups and key informant interviews that address modifiable aspects of the PROSPER implementation. The second aim is to evaluate implementation of the adapted PROSPER implementation in sites where NGR families reside. This second aim will be achieved by identifying and assessing factors associated with variations in the quality of PROSPER implementation, including the effectiveness of local teams, across 12 intervention sites, and by examining relationships between local team processes and the quality of program implementation. The third aim is to examine PROSPER outcomes with NGR families using a randomized controlled design in 24 sites, with 720 families at baseline. Outcomes examined will include targeted youth substance misuse and other problem behaviors, family functioning, parent and youth competencies, and parent-youth relationship quality.